• by Mario Carrasco , Op-Ed Contributor, July 19, 2018

We’re all still recovering from one of the most exciting World Cups in history. While the U.S. Men’s soccer team was sorely missed from this year’s games, we sat back and marveled as fandom drove sales for Mexico’s team jersey through the roof, making it the number 1 jersey sold across 23 states.

But the epic magnitude of this battle among giants can’t be confined to dollars and cents. The 2018 World Cup was the epitome of David versus Goliath as we were thunderstruck watching the 20^th ranked team entering the tournament becoming a finalist and ultimately losing to a mesmerizing France team with a 19-year-old wunderkind superstar, Mbappe. 

Advertisers scored big as well. Telemundo came out on top for broadcast with record ad revenues, surpassing Fox. But in the social space, who won?  Turns out, 280 characters goes a long way. Twitter was one of the world’s largest digital stadiums with millions following the World Cup and tweeting even after the final game. We analyzed Twitter internal data, and Crimson Hexagon data pulled for Spanish language tweets of U.S. users from June 14, 2018 to July 15, 2018. 

So, what were the Most Tweeted moments in Spanish in the U.S.?

1. France is the new World champion upon defeating Croatia 4-2 in the #WorldCupFinal on July 15, 2018
2. Mexico qualifies in extremis to the Round of 16 with the help of Korea, who defeated Germany, on June 27, 2018
3. Mexico is eliminated from the World Cup after losing to Brazil 2-0 in the Round of 16, on July 2, 2018

France was the clear winner for the most tweeted moment in Spanish in the U.S., but Mexico wasn’t too far behind taking the second and third most-tweeted moments in Spanish in the U.S. It looks like all those Mexican national team jerseys sold also translated to a lot of tweets! While Mexico became the defacto U.S. team to root for, the second and third most-tweeted moments in Spanish point to a demographic fact that all marketers should be aware of: Hispanics are still speaking Spanish in the U.S. Furthermore, there are more Spanish speakers in the U.S. today than ever before despite a decline in overall percentage of Spanish speakers. 

Looks like people don’t want to stop talking about World Cup…

Conversation after the final whistle saw 2.9 times more tweets than the opening day of tournament. Could this finally be the World Cup that makes soccer take off in the U.S.? It seems as though we’ve been hearing that prediction for the past several World Cups here in the U.S., but something about this one feels different, and it is. Demographically, the U.S. is shifting in favor of a more soccer-oriented culture. Additionally, U.S. soccer clubs have been gaining steam from a viewer and fan perspective, and we’re already seeing Twitter activity regarding the #2022WorldCup in Qatar.  

What can marketers do?

Keep up. Despite conspiracy theories about the demise of Twitter as a viable source for audience engagement, Twitter is alive and well, especially for real-time moments. Twitter is where people look to get the 411, and for World Cup fans in different time zones, who may have been snoozing while a match was on, Twitter gets them up to speed. So, follow the conversations. And from our data, they lead to Twitter, especially among Spanish speakers in the U.S.